Condorcet Voting and Supermajorities (Re: [CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT] Disambiguation of 4.1.5)

[Buddha Buck <bmbuck@14850.com>]

> Since we're already using a Condorcet-base scheme, it's probably best to
> keep doing that (ie, keeping the "foo DOMINATES bar"). From the latter
> URL, it seems that "Tideman" and "Schulze" are probably the most suitable
> (they're not vulnerable to most of the nasty strategies). Mike Ossipoff
> listed a whole bunch of related systems in his letters too.
> 
  <snip>
> 
> I presume the best way to handle different possiblities on ballots is
> just to vote on them at once (eg, "Remove non-free // We love non-free! //
> Status-quo // Further discussion") and have whichever one wins (according
> to the voting rules, and any supermajority requirements), win.

Could someone explain to me, in simple terms, how Condorcet-based 
voting schemes work in the face of a supermajority requirement?

My understanding of Condorcet is that a ballot like Anthony Towns used 
as an example ("Remove non-free // We Love non-free! // Status-quo // 
Further discussion") would be, during the first analysis, treated as if 
it were 6 separate 1-on-1 votes, with each of the four choices paired 
against each of the remaining 3.  If any of the four wins all three of 
the 1-on-1 votes it's part of, it wins the full balloting.  Otherwise, 
we use a fall-back resolution method (of which there are several 
varieties in the literature to choose in advance from).

This works fine if all the options required a plurality to win (note:  
I'm not even sure if "majority" or "plurality" are appropriate
descriptions of the victory condition in Condorcet-based schemes).  The 
system is balanced. 

But if one of the choices explicitly requires a 3:1 supermajority to work, I 
don't see how it works quite so well.

Can someone clear this up for me?

-- 
     Buddha Buck                             bmbuck@14850.com
"Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our
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